Veronica
Travis hadn't properly prepared me for his friend Wren. Laurel was the only friend of his I'd met, so in my head, I'd pictured someone similar to her. I'd been entirely off-base. Travis and I were waiting patiently outside the airport when a small crowd flooded out. I'd thought I'd somehow instantaneously recognize who we were looking for, so I was completely taken by surprise when the couple appeared in front of us.
The guy—Carter—stayed back a few steps, his eyes assessing. Wren did no such thing. She threw her arms wide and launched herself at me, forcing me into a hug. Wild red hair hung loosely around her shoulders. Her floor-length skirt swung around her ankles. She was the exact opposite of what I'd been expecting.
"I'm so glad to meet you," Wren gushed. "I felt so bad that all of us were leaving Trav here by himself. Then you showed up, like fate." She was beaming from ear-to-ear.
"Wren, you're coming on a little strong," Travis warned.
She waved off his concern. "I'll be honest, I was sort of hoping Stella would be with you." She glanced behind us as if there was a chance we were just hiding the toddler.
"It was too late," I explained apologetically. "She would have just been fussy."
"What about tomorrow? Could I meet her then? Kids love me."
"Because she can juggle. They think she's a clown," Carter added with a chuckle.
Wren smacked his chest lightly, teasingly. Envy ran through my veins as I watched the easy way they interacted. They looked incredibly happy just to be standing next to each other. I forced myself to shake it off. I had a tendency not to be the friendliest of people around strangers, but that wasn't the impression I wanted to give to the two closest people in Travis' life.
I forced myself to smile. "How was your flight?"
"It was fantastic. Hey, what do you guys think about going by The Burgundy? I bought Ms. Hazel a souvenir. Spoiler alert, it's the creepiest voodoo doll I've ever seen."
I cracked up. "She'll love that," I said knowingly.
"Right?! I seriously can't wait to give it to her, can we please go?" She slung an arm around me and directed her question at the guys—as if she and I were in on the new plan together.
Carter shrugged.
"Sure," Travis answered carefully. As Wren bounced her way into the car—Carter in tow—Travis lowered his voice next to me. "Are you okay with that?"
"Yeah. I should get to know your friends, right?"
He studied me for a moment. "I'd certainly like for you to get to know them, yes."
"Then it's settled. Besides, it'll be cool to see the night crew in action. I only ever work the day shift."
They were famous last words. Nothing could have adequately prepared me for the chaos of a late night at The Burgundy. Afternoons and early evening were always so calm. I was suddenly overwhelmingly glad that Hazel had never asked me to work the night shift. The two bartenders on duty—Mark and Kayla—worked at a breakneck speed that I would never have been able to emulate. They each looked like the bartending equivalent of a rockstar.
"This is insane," I told Travis. I was propped up on a stool at a table near the pool tables in the back. Travis was standing next to me because of a shortage of seats. He was saving the only other stool at our table for Wren—who'd gone with Carter to get drinks.
"I know." He dropped a heavy hand casually on my thigh as he leaned closer to be heard over the rowdy group playing pool behind us. "Are you sure you don't want something to drink? Just because I'm not drinking doesn't mean you can't."
"I'm good," I reassured him.
Travis had made it clear that he wasn't planning on drinking, which was good considering what Vinnie had brought up at The Burgundy. Travis and I had never re-visited that conversation. I wanted to ask but I wasn't sure what the proper etiquette was.
As if he'd read my mind, Travis suddenly said, "I got sober after the accident. I even did a stint in rehab to help me get clean. That doesn't mean you can't drink around me. I stopped drinking a long time ago, it's not a trigger for me or anything when other people are drinking. I'm solid."
I'd never imagined something like sobriety could seem so sexy.
I felt myself looking at Travis in a whole new light. Gone were all traces of the teenage alcoholic with a chip on his shoulder about being the poorest person in the room. Travis had grown into the kind of man who'd learned what he was really worth. He'd learned to handle the chip on his shoulder much better than I'd ever learned to handle my own. Honestly, it made me feel a little guilty about how caught up in the past I still was. If Travis could so readily move on, why couldn't I?
All of our interactions since running into each other had been while sober. If I believed Travis—which I had to admit that I did—then that's how the rest of our interactions would be, too. There was no crutch to help us get through the awkward stuff or things we didn't want to actually do. It added a layer of intimacy to everything that hadn't been there when we were younger.
It was why I'd felt compelled to finally put enough trust in Travis to let him drive. And now, it was making me imagine all sorts of other things I wanted to trust him to do.
Travis smoothed a finger over the stress lines that had appeared on my forehead. "What are you thinking so hard about?"
"You," I answered easily. My voice lowered. "I let you drive tonight."
"Trust me, I noticed."
Travis had one arm settled over the back of my stool. I ran my hand along the length of that arm, mesmerized by my sudden, desperate need to feel his bicep. The hand that was still on my upper thigh tightened as a small groan escaped his lips.
I let my hand trail over to the front of his shirt, disappointed by the way the material hid what was underneath. His hand shifted slightly higher on my thigh. Another inch and he'd no doubt feel the heat radiating off of me. I knew that it wasn't a good idea to fall into something physical together without hashing out the past, but it had been far too long since he'd touched me.
"What are you doing?" Travis asked just as my hand started to dip dangerously low towards the waist of his jeans.
"Forgot where I was there for a minute," I mumbled as I pulled my hand away from him and used it to fan myself.
Travis let out a sexy laugh that made my heart race. I leaned into him. All of a sudden, he was looking down at me with bedroom eyes. I moaned so quietly that I wasn't sure at first if he'd even heard it.
And then his mouth was on mine.
It was just a quick kiss, one that hadn't even been scandalous enough to draw attention from the crowd. It was still enough to stoke the fire that was building low in my gut.
"I want—" But I never got the chance to finish telling him what I wanted.
Wren broke through the crowd with Carter right on her heels. She triumphantly held up her beer bottle and a pitcher of water that she'd somehow managed to secure. Behind her, Carter had a beer of his own but also an entire arm's load of glasses for us to drink from. I was impressed.
Travis shifted away from me slightly, allowing the tension between us to cool. It was quite the relief, considering how close I'd been to jumping him right there in front of his friends and everyone else in the bar.
"Now, in the name of friendship," Wren announced with enough over-exaggeration to make me believe she'd already finished at least one drink, "I propose a rousing round of icebreakers!"
"Icebreakers?" Even Travis looked surprised by that one.
Carter rubbed at his forehead awkwardly. "When I volunteered last semester with that after school program I made the mistake of telling Wren about the icebreakers they made us do."
"What sort of icebreakers?" I asked suspiciously. And thus began the weirdest two hours of my life.